


would it really kill you if we kissed

by Eorlingas



Series: treacherous [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:43:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4988938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eorlingas/pseuds/Eorlingas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant Ward is an idiot. Skye kinda likes him anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	would it really kill you if we kissed

Grant likes to accuse her of following him around, but Skye knows this isn't the case. True, she doesn't _hate it_ when he happens to be the SHIELD agent she's going toe-to-toe (or other, more interesting body parts) with, but more often than not, it's as pure of a coincidence as can be. Which, okay, isn't very pure. It's her, after all.

This time, though, she doesn't know he's there until the AIM agent's bullet curves from its intended target of the hulking SHIELD agent she doesn't recognize - and directly into her path.

She only manages to move a fraction of an inch in the split second she has to register the threat, but it's enough for the bullet to just graze her forearm instead of becoming embedded within.

Still, it hurts like a bitch.

Skye bites back the groan that rises in her throat and concentrates on getting to a place further out of the range of fire. She'd _thought_ she'd been plenty well-covered, but that had been before Quake himself had shown up to send bullets in paths that defied the laws of physics. Normally she finds the whole superpowers thing kind of hot, but this is not one of those times.

In her opinion, SHIELD could have picked a better day to launch this particular assault.

She'd gone in to do some reconnaissance on the growing organization of scientists, maybe plant a system-destroying virus or two. Sure, she had plenty of underlings who she could have sent to do it for her, but Skye finds there's some things she prefers to do herself. She'd been a specialist, the best since Romanoff. She can't afford to let herself get rusty - that had been the downfall of her predecessors, to her point of view. They'd let themselves get too cozy in their big offices, thought themselves above getting their hands dirty. They'd paid for it with their lives.

Skye wouldn't be making the same mistake.

She moves, crablike, to the shelter of a half-dilapidated brick structure. By the time gunfire's ceased, she's managed to fashion a makeshift tourniquet from one sleeve, but has had difficulty applying it one-handed, especially as that hand has been busy firing off bullets at the small handful of AIM agents that have come across her. She's run out of ammo now, though, so one less worry, she guesses.

The place has gone quiet as most of the SHIELD operatives have advanced into the lower levels of the AIM headquarters, but Skye knows she isn't alone.

She performs a quick surveil of her surroundings - no escape, and the pile of bodies she's accumulated around her are kind of a literal dead giveaway as to her location. Well, then. She's trapped, but there's no need to let _him_ know that. She forces her muscles to relax and plasters on a smirk, appearing for all the world to be perfectly at ease with her situation.

He rounds the corner, gun raised, and his eyes immediately latch onto her. He doesn't seem surprised by her presence. She feels her practiced grin slip ever so slightly as she recognizes the expression on his face as sheer, overwhelming relief. It's gone again in a moment, but she knows what she saw.

It's easily the most terrifying thing about this entire situation.

"Long time no see, rookie," Skye drawls at last and Grant shakes his head ever so slightly and they're on familiar ground again.

"Not that long. Seems Hydra's everywhere these days," he returns, but with a shade or two less of a sneer than usual.

"You know how it is. Cut off one head - "

"Oh, _please_ don't - " he stops abruptly and frowns. "You're bleeding."

She looks down at her arm as if she hadn't noticed. "Huh."

Suddenly he's very much in her space, his weapon in its holster, crouching next to her as he inspects her wound. "I thought you'd dodged it," he mutters.

Skye chooses not to think about how he's apparently known she was here the whole time and focuses instead on keeping her breathing even - a task which she finds irritatingly difficult. She decides to blame it on the pain pulsing through her arm.

"I wouldn't have had to if it wasn't for you and your magic wavy hands," she retorts, moving her own in demonstration.

A shadow passes over his face at this before he moves to take the bunched cotton in her hand and she realizes what he intends to do.

"Don't be an idiot, Ward," she says sharply, jerking away from his touch.

Grant looks up, clearly taken aback. Skye had always known that someone that handsome couldn't be terribly smart, and now he's proving it to her. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You, apparently."

He rolls his eyes. "Can we maybe do whatever this is after I'm done?"

Skye raises her eyebrows at him, brushing her bangs out of her eyes impatiently. "Done binding your enemy's wounds, you mean?"

He drops his hand from where it hovers over her arm. "What, you'd rather me let you bleed out?"

"Kind of, yeah!"

He stares at her. "I knew you were crazy, but _wow_ , you're really taking it up a notch."

She ignores him and drops her head into her hands. "God, Ward. Tell me I was a better S.O. than this."

"I mean, you _did_ teach me how to take a punch. But let's see - deceit, manipulation, betrayal. The near murders of half of my team. No, you were great." His tone remains relatively light, laced with sarcasm though it may be, and he's _just not getting it._

"Exactly!" She looks up and points at him, letting her frustration colour her voice and it's like training in the cargo hold all over again. "You know what I'm capable of. I'm a known traitor. I'm your goddamn enemy, Grant! And here you are, tending my injuries with your sidearm totally within my reach. This is the kind of thing that gets you killed."

He tilts his head to one side as if he's considering her. "By you?"

_Never_. "Maybe."

Ward gives her an unfathomable look, then slowly reaches for her hand and gently unfurls her clenched fist, taking the tourniquet from her. Ignoring her noise of disapproval, he proceeds to wrap her wound tightly and efficiently.

"You know with this whole quake powers thing," he begins conversationally. "I can pick up the vibrations of everything around me. And I do mean everything. Living things are the easiest, though. Especially heartbeats. They say normal heart rhythms all sound the same, but I haven't found that to be true. Everyone has their own distinctive pattern." He pauses. "I've gotten to know yours pretty well."

"I think you've been spending too much time with Fitzsimmons," she says flippantly. She's not sure she likes where this is going.

"You know, it's usually pretty steady," he continues as if he hasn't even heard her. "Except when it isn't."

She shouldn't ask. She shouldn't.

"And when is that?"

"Whenever I touch you."

Skye feels her chin lift in challenge. "So?" she asks as coolly as she can manage. It's pretty cold. She's had a lot of practice.

Ward shrugs, unperturbed as he finishes tying off the bandage. "So nothing, maybe. Or so everything. I haven't decided."

She watches him for a long moment. Her precious, stupid, noble, dogged, all-together too-good rookie. "You're risking a lot on a heartbeat."

"Well, that, and the fact that you're wounded, I have actual superpowers and this," he indicates the gun on his hip with a nod. "is an ICER." He shrugs. "I like my odds, is all."

"You're an idiot," she tells him.

"You said that already."

"I could be armed. You didn't even search me."

"Would you like me to?" He grins up at her from under absurdly long eyelashes and it's far filthier than anything she'd used to imagine him capable of. God, she's glad she was wrong.

Skye decides she has to do something to shift the power balance a little here. She arches her spine ever so slightly, letting her hair fall off her shoulder and down her back. If her top slides a little lower than strictly necessary in the process, all the better.

"I probably wouldn't stop you," she says, glancing up at him and _oh_ , she's got his attention now if she didn't already. She moistens her lips deliberately, following the way his gaze drops to them.

"Skye," he warns even as his head begins to tilt toward hers.

"Ward," she mimics. The gap between them narrows at an achingly slow rate.

He comes to a stop a fraction of an inch too soon. She can feel his exhale soft against her mouth and every instinct urges her to close the distance, but she's mastered her instincts too often in her life to give into them now. If he's insisting on damning himself, she's not going to do any more of it for him than she already has.

Finally, he leans in, but as he does so she shifts the angle of her head so that her mouth ends up brushing the shell of his ear instead.

"You should like your odds less," she whispers, and she presses the muzzle of the ICER she's managed to extract from his holster into his chest.

Grant pulls back and stares at her, the corners of his mouth twitching curiously. Finally he shakes his head, rising to his feet and backing a fair distance away from her.

"Get out of here," he says and it's with real affection. Skye knows because something in her chest constricts in response. Or maybe it's because they both know that the only way that ICER would have been a threat to him was if she had pulled the trigger immediately. Either way, he's letting her go.

Skye wonders, with a vague pang, if he would ever try to keep her.

She stands slowly, letting the blood-flow redistribute itself in her limbs. She's already lost a fair bit of blood and the last thing she needs is to pass out on the way out of here. She doubts anyone that she might encounter would be as generous as Grant is being.

She makes her way out of the room, refusing to turn her back to him as more of a formality than anything else. At the exit, she pauses. "They have some nasty tricks in their lowest levels. You'll need your best tech guys."

He nods, though wariness is creeping back into his features. She understands it, but she urgently needs him to believe the next thing she's going to say.

"And Grant? It's better if you stay away from it all entirely."

He tilts his head curiously. "Is that a threat?"

Skye gives him a half-smile. "Parting words of wisdom from your former S.O." She bites her lip. "Please, Grant." She allows her desperation to bleed dangerously and uncharacteristically close to the surface and she sees him register this with widening eyes.

He steps forward as if to stop her. "Skye - "

"Later, rookie," she interrupts, forcing a grin.

She rounds the corner and focuses her energy into one of her foremost talents - disappearing. She's gonna need to pull out all the stops if she hopes to put any significant distance between herself and a man who can track her by her heartbeat.

_Distance_. She allows the smallest of sighs to escape as she peels down the street in her commandeered vehicle. Distance between herself and Grant Ward is pretty much the last thing she wants. Yet if that's what it takes to keep him alive, she'll do it if it kills her.

Her life for his - she'll take those odds.


End file.
